Jessica Helgerson

Interior Designer
Portland, OR

Jessica Helgerson has more than fifteen years experience designing residential and commercial interiors. Though her interiors are typically clean and uncluttered, she is comfortable working in a variety of styles, guided by her clients’ individual needs and tastes. Her design process is pragmatic (how should the space be laid out to flow and function well?) as well as creative/conceptual (what idea or feeling will ground and focus the design?).

At the beginning of each project, Jessica likes to start with the same questions: What’s the best design for the client? What’s the best design for the building or space? What will stand the test of time, stylistically and functionally? For any project, her goal is to ensure that the fundamental design and materials are classic, long lasting, and appropriate to the building and its period. Then she likes to layer on fresh, contemporary elements—such as lighting, furniture, and art—that feel just right for the clients and for the moment.

Jessica has a long-standing interest in green building and sustainability. At the start of her career she was a green building activist, sitting on a number of boards devoted to environmental preservation and serving as president of the Sustainability Project. She continues to bring this interest in sustainability into her daily life. For four years, her family lived, rather experimentally, in a 540-square-foot cottage on five acres of farmland. Adorned with a planted green roof and big front porch, the cottage was remodeled with almost entirely reclaimed materials. With her husband, she has been raising chickens, turkeys, and bees and growing nearly all the food their family eats, as well as throwing lots of big dinner parties for friends hungry for food they can see growing. They now live on a larger house on the same property, where everyone can spread out a bit.

Fluent in French and Italian, she has lived and worked in Italy, Switzerland, and France. Her life in Europe and her travels in India, Mexico, Morocco, and the Far East have strongly influenced her work.